Some gamer out there did a rather unusual thing last month. It seems that somebody purchased a shiny new copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Game Gear – at retail. To be clear, this was not a random find at a thrift store or yard sale. This was a factory sealed game that was physically scanned at checkout from a retailer that reports to the NPD Group and somebody happened to notice the single sale for that particular SKU.
This bizarre incident comes to us from NPD analyst Mat Piscatella via Twitter:
Someone in the U.S. market bought a brand new copy of Sonic 2 for the Game Gear at retail in March, 2018. I want to know who this person is, where they bought it, and how that all happened.
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) April 28, 2018
The Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released in the United States on November 17th, 1992 – shortly after Bill Clinton won the presidential election that year. It is quite possible that this game was sitting around in some dusty storeroom for over twenty-five years before a lucky customer decided to buy it.
Users who responded to Piscatella’s tweet speculate that the game may have been misplaced or knocked under a store shelf where it sat for all these years. It could have been rediscovered if the store (possibly a Toys “R” Us) was liquidating its stock and fixtures. Toys “R” Us stores began liquidating their stock during the last week of March so that is certainly a plausible theory.
This is not the first time that Game Gear games have surfaced at retail years after the system was discontinued. One UK gamer claims that several Disney Game Gear games including The Lion King showed up at his local 99p store.
I have to admit that my secret hope is time-traveling gremlins are behind this.
If anybody familiar with the details of this purchase happens to see this article, please get in touch with us and fill us in. We would love to know how this happened.
